Fundamental Pettiness Of Palin Doesn't Escape Attention of Panel In Her Home State

The image of a barracuda may sit well with certain voters -- the right-wing fringe, the kind whom John McCain has generally been indulging amid their outbursts of "Kill him!" and "Terrorist" at the rallies, in reference to Barack Obama. But that image apparently didn't sit well with members of an Alaska legislative panel.

The chief investigator of that panel concluded Friday that Sarah Palin, as Alaska's governor, unlawfully abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.

Here's more from The Associated Press:

Onward.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report to a bipartisan panel that looked into the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.

The inquiry looked into her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.

Monegan's firing was lawful, the report found, but Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making — even if it was not the sole reason Monegan was dismissed.

"I feel vindicated," Monegan said. "It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field."

Here's a link to the complete AP report.

I think we're seeing more that has resulted from the abysmal failure of the McCain campaign to vet his vice presidential choice. The problem here was clearly part of Palin's record in Alaska for many months, yet the McCain campaign had no figurative mine detectors out.

Let's skip thoughts about Sarah Barracuda, as a prospective VP, for just a moment. What does this say about John McCain's fitness to be commander-in-chief? Would he choose his Cabinet, his judicial appointees, more astutely?

Granted, Joe Biden is an old face, all too familiar to viewers of Sunday-morning talking-head TV. But Obama, even with his just-under four years in the Senate, has made a vastly better choice for an understudy. Even if Biden is old news, I would feel a lot safer with him having the nuclear codes than someone like Sarah Barracuda.

I'd say Obama could be trusted to make many more good choices. McCain made a shockingly bad one, and the news gets worse every day. It might be a wise decision for him to urge Palin to step down and try to get, say, Mitt Romney as a late replacement. But it's so late in the game, I don't think he could be persuaded to do anything of the sort.

Bring on Nov. 4. I just hope there isn't some new and ingenious way for the Republican machine to steal this election.

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The Idiocy of Hindrocket Never Fails to Astonish

Hindrocket sees something wonderful in how John McCain has used cheap platitudes and ignorance to take ownership of the Georgia issue. I guess the fact that Condi Rice isn't going to end her vacation is reinforced by the fact that McCain--who never shows up in the Senate anymore--is on the case.

One of the most striking features of the crisis in Georgia has been the role played by John McCain. While President Bush was enjoying the Olympics and Barack Obama was on vacation in Hawaii, McCain became the leading international spokesman on behalf of Georgia. While Obama initially parroted the Russian line, so that he was soon required to flip-flop--what a surprise!--McCain saw the crisis from the beginning as a clear case of Russian aggression, and understood the strategic implications of that aggression.

Today, in a speech in York, Pennsylvania, McCain continued his role as the strongest advocate for Georgian independence. His remarks were so cogent and so eloquent that I will quote them almost in full:

Georgia itself, my friends, has a long and remarkable history. It was a fourth-century convert to Christianity, one of the first nations on Earth to convert to Christianity -- if you go to Georgia, as I have several times, you'll see churches that go back to the fourth- and fifth-century -- and it's been a part of the grand sweep that comprises Western civilization. But because of their location, their history hasn't been easy. Through the centuries, they have seen invasions and attacks from Mongols, Russians, Turks and Persians. And through it all, they maintain their language, their cultural identity, and their national pride. And as you know, they were part of the Soviet Union and were able to achieve their independence when the Soviet Union disintegrated. And they're facing terrible trials today, but they'll get through this, too.

And, my friends, and I'll talk about this more in a minute -- but they're at a strategic crossroads. There's a pipeline, an oil pipeline, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, which brings oil from the Caspian to points west and traverses Georgia -- that's the very pipeline that the Russians tried to bomb. And I don't have to tell you about the price of oil and disruption of oil supplies.

It has been an extraordinary moment, in which John McCain has seemed almost more the leader of the free world than the President. You can be sure that in November, Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin will be following our election results with equal attention.

They'll be laughing their asses off along with us as McCain wins slightly more than a dozen states. Leader of the free world? Leader of the Apple Dumpling Gang, more lik. Cognent and eloquent? How about wrong?

British energy giant BP said Tuesday that it was not aware of any Russian attack on a key international oil pipeline in Georgia that the group operates.

'We're not aware of any attack at all. We have no report at all of an attack,' a BP spokeswoman told AFP.

Yes, my friends--John McCain is repeating unadulterated bullshit that is not factual or backed up with any evidence and Hindrocket calls it 'cognent and eloquent.'

McCain is the laughingstock's laughingstock--a perfect example of the out-of-touch bloviating windbag.

Hindrocket's claim to fame, of course:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

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Let's Frame the Question a Different Way.

I've read the anti-Hillary sentiment and the need to post a protest vote. Let's look at this in a slightly different way.

If McCain/Lieberman (and I'll be the first to say this will be the Republican ticket in '08) is the Republican ticket and they've already said they favor the surge and other long-term strategies in Iraq

and

Clinton/Obama (UPdate: I'll go so far as to say any anti-war VP), who have both said the war needs to end - irrespective of an initial vote to support and, for Hillary, the inability to make mea culpa,

Who would you really vote for?

In my mind, some things are can be forgiven with the right set of circumstances. In that, any Republican in favor of the war will make my vote Hillary.

That said, right now I'm leaning Edwards in the primary. Obama second. Hillary third (and, yes, I have always been a big Hillary fan). But, we've got a long way to go.

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Michigan: Carl Levin on Iraq

From today's Detroit Free Press, an article on Michigan Senator Carl Levin doing his job:

Michigan's senior U.S. senator, Carl Levin, used his first hearing as chairman of the Armed Services Committee to say that adding more U.S. troops will lengthen, not shorten the war.

"We've got to let the Iraqis know that we're going to have to reduce troops, not increase troops, and that needs to begin in four to six months," Levin said after the committee's four-hour grilling of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The hearing followed a similar interrogation of Gates and Pace by the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, and the contentious Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting where senators from both parties chastised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Both sessions left an unanswered question: What will the United States do if an increase in troops cannot help stabilize the situation in Iraq?

After the hearing, Levin said the Iraqi government can't be trusted to get the country under control. "Of course we would reconsider our strategy," he said. "I presume next time, we'll send in 40,000 more troops. Get in deeper and deeper."

Sounds about right; in watching some of the House and Senate hearings, worrisome questions-without-answers kept popping up: If this 'surge' doesn't bring the country under control, then what? How long will this 'surge' last? Despite Gates' assertion that he would know in "a couple months" whether or not this escalati...I mean, surge is working, any information regarding what happens afterward has been basically nonexistent. I really don't like the idea of an open-ended committment allowing Dubya to extend the US occupation of Iraq indefinitely, or at least until the next President is elected.

Kudos to Levin and to all the other members of Congress who are asking the questions that need to be asked...Oversight is good, and we've had little of it over the past few years.

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